


Tea, Terror and Time

by Kunstpause



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8772436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kunstpause/pseuds/Kunstpause
Summary: “It was something you said actually,” she admitted. “About redemption and atonement?” He looked up to her at that. Her voice went very quiet.“I don’t know, it felt like if I don’t give you a chance at that, what chance do I even deserve myself?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set a short while after Arcann joins the Alliance with an Agent who actually was the Hand of Jadus.

It was almost three in the morning when Seshat finally gave up on the notion of getting any actual sleep and with a tired sigh got out of bed and into some warm clothes again. She always had trouble sleeping but this marked the third night in a row where sleep just completely eluded her and it was starting to slowly get to her. Her limbs felt heavy as she dragged herself out of her room towards the kitchen. She tried to remember when she last slept for more than two hours at a time and drew a blank. Sometime before her carbonite stint? She wasn’t even sure about that anymore. Peaceful nights seemed like a faint memory from decades ago.

 

As she shuffled into the dimly lit kitchen she almost didn’t see it was already occupied. Arcann was sitting at the corner table with a pile of datapads and a cup of something steaming hot in front of him. He looked up as he heard her enter. 

 

“Commander,” he greeted. With a look at the time he frowned. “Good morning I guess?”

 

“Morning,” Seshat mumbled back and started rummaging through a cupboard to get a mug. “What are you drinking?” 

 

“Tea, help yourself.” He made a gesture towards the pot on the other table as he kept watching her. He seemed to be at loss on how to react to her most of the time. They got along well enough since he joined her alliance but there was an unspoken hesitance from both of them, keeping them from engaging the other into too much personal talk.

 

Seshat blamed her lack of sleep for her complete lack of awareness about them not actually being friends in any sort of meaning of that word when she poured herself some tea and sat down on the bench in front of him. 

 

“Can’t sleep either, huh?” She asked bluntly. “Somehow I can’t imagine this is you usual time for paperwork.”

 

If Arcann was taken aback he didn’t let it show. “Not really,” he admitted. “Sleeping is more… troubling than helpful lately.”

 

“Yeah, tell me about it.” She took a sip of her tea and noticed that it was chamomile. Her favourite. It brought a small smile to her face as she drank some more.   
She heard him shuffle the datapads around in front of her. There seemed to be something on his mind. Something he wanted to say. Seshat simply waited and let him take his time. 

 

“Commander, if I may ask you something?’ His voice was a bit strained and he made an effort not to look directly at her.

 

“Seshat,” She corrected him. He looked at her confused. 

 

“My name. Please call me by my name. Not by… that.” She was surprised by the level of disgust in her voice that managed to slip through her carefully composed fassade.

 

“Is there something wrong with your title?” Arcann seemed genuinely interested in her reaction. 

 

Seshat let out a huff of air. “No, And yes. I just… I hate being called that.” She tried to remind herself to breathe deeply. The tiredness making it hard to keep her composure. “Every time someone refers to me by a title I just feel like less and less of an actual person. And on top of it it’s a title I shouldn’t even have.” 

 

Arcann nodded. “I guess I can understand the first part at least.” He agreed. “Though I do not see a reason for the second one.”

 

There was a moment of silence before Seshat explained: “Because no one here knows who I really am. What I have done before I got here.” Her voice was devoid of any emotion.   
“I was a very different person before all this.” She gestured around her. “The women you put into carbonite over five years ago? She deserved every second of it and more perhaps.” She saw him flinch at the mention of their first meeting.   
“But you wanted to ask something different I guess?”

 

He nodded and looked as composed as before again. “I wondered about this for a while now. Why you gave me of all people a second chance? Not many people would have.” ‘I probably wouldn’t have’ went his unspoken but very obvious afterthought.

 

“It was something you said actually,” she admitted. “About redemption and atonement?” He looked up to her at that. Her voice went very quiet.  
“I don’t know, it felt like if I don’t give you a chance at that, what chance do I even deserve myself?”

 

Acrann tilted his head. Questions written all over his face but he seemed hesitant to ask. Seshat took a deep breath.

 

“You have read up on me and the empire right?” He nodded at that. 

 

“I think it is safe to say that when we were enemies we both did our homework.”

 

She agreed with a pained expression on her face. “Yes, but what you might have missed is that many of my actual involvements in the Empire were classified and well hidden or straight out erased from records.” He let her continue without interrupting her.  
“I was a cypher agent after all, doing all the dirty things and the cleanup that the military was too upstanding for and the Sith couldn’t lower themselves to do.” 

 

She steeled herself for what she was about to tell him.  
“Have you ever heard of the Eradicators?” She asked.

 

Arcann nodded. “The Tyranny Massacre, right? I read about it. Had the highest domestic terrorism casualties in your recorded history?” Then he seemed to understand. “You were there?”

 

Her hollow laugh sounded scratchy and too loud for the quiet night atmosphere. “I was there. I was the one that fired the damn weapons.” She didn’t need to look at him to know she had shocked him with this. “I am responsible for the death of so many people. And not because I failed to stop a madman but because when push came to shove I let him get to me. I joined him, and in doing so sold out the one person I almost considered family.” Almost no one besides herself and some very few select people knew what really happened on that day so many years ago. “No one held a gun to my head, I had every chance to stop his madness but he promised me things and I, the idiot that I was, took him up on that.” 

 

Arcann looked at her solemnly. “What did he offer you?” 

 

Seshat took another sip of her tea as if they were talking about the weather. In a way that made it easier for her to talk.   
“He offered power. To a degree that someone like me, growing up as a non force user in the Empire couldn't even dream of. I joined Imperial Intelligence to get revenge on someone and he seemed the best way to make that happen.So when he gave me a choice I took his offer and I annihilated millions without remorse. At that time.”

 

He gave no sign of what he was thinking but there was no judgement in Arcann’s voice when he next spoke. “So what changed?”

 

She wished she had something to fidget with while she spoke. Anything really. She settled on the mug between her hands and slowly turned it left and right while speaking.   
“I want to say I realised what I did and became a better person right then but I didn’t.” The warmth of the tee coming through the walls of the mug had a somewhat soothing effect.   
“I got the promised power that I wanted, but I also made the Dark Council angry by that. They worried what someone like me could do to them so they…” Her voice almost broke and she had to swallow the bile that always came up when she consciously thought about what happened.  
“They did something to me. Something I’d rather not talk about ever. They did it over and over again until they made sure I was broken enough to never raise a hand against any one of them. And they got the one person I trusted to do it for them.” She couldn’t really suppress the shiver running through her while she spoke. It was all so long ago, and yet, in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep it often felt like it was still happening.

 

“Lucky for me they made a mistake along the way and I managed to get away from it all.” She concluded.   
“That’s when I realised that, at some point of my life I would have done the same things they did to me to other people without questioning. That is when I knew I had to change. That everything had to change.” She looked at her empty mug and got up to get herself a refill. When she sat back down Arcann still seemed to be in deep thought about what she told him.  
“That is why, by the way.” She said.

 

He looked at her questioningly. “That is why what?” 

 

“That is why I offered you a second chance. Because I got one. Someone who knew all that I had done still gave me one, gve me a chance to make up for some things. Even if I will never manage to erase what I have done. That is why I knew when you said you were beyond redemption but still wanted to atone you deserved the same chance.” She looked at him directly and without flinching for the first time that night.  
“Because if I can’t give that chance to you, what right do I even have to try myself?

 

Arcann sat in in front of her, stunned into silence. For a while neither of them said a word. The faint noise of the heating vents being the only sounds heard in the kitchen.   
“I guess,” Arcann finally said, “we have even more in common than I originally thought.” 

 

Seshat smiled sadly at that. “You are probably right.” She sighed deeply. “Your mother keeps telling me no one is beyond redemption. That everyone can become a good person if they try hard enough and have some help.” Her voice was somewhat wistful. “I am not sure I can believe that if I am really honest.”

 

Understanding shone in Arcann’s eyes at that. “My mother is ever so optimistic.” He sounded almost in awe of that. “Personally I am thinking more like you. I don’t know if either of us can really be redeemed. All I can do, well, all we can to really is to try to live up to her expectations.”

 

At his words Seshat almost flinched but she couldn’t really disagree. She raised her mug in an almost mock salute. “To not let Senya or anyone down like that again then!”

 

To her surprise Arcann smiled and tapped his cup against hers. “To not letting anyone down,” he agreed.

 

“Well,” she remarked somewhat optimistically, “there is two of us now. Maybe atoning is actually possible if one isn’t alone in it anymore…” It was a loaded statement but his smile at her words sent a wave of relief through her immediately and she raised her mug again.

 

“Indeed.” The light sound of two cups being clinked together went through the kitchen. “To not trying this alone.”


End file.
